


the rule for all terrors

by kindclaws



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, like absolutely nauseatingly fluffy and prose-y, some years after a vaguely divergent s3 where things didn't go to shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26604406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindclaws/pseuds/kindclaws
Summary: On a cold spring morning as they’re repairing a chicken coop in their pajamas, Bellamy asks Clarke if she’s ever thought about getting married.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 50
Kudos: 209





	the rule for all terrors

**Author's Note:**

> **CONTENT WARNINGS:** ...none? I think?
> 
>  **PERMISSIONS:** I can't stop you from downloading and saving this fic locally, but I'd rather you didn't. I make frequent revisions, and if I ever decide I hate it I'll orphan rather than deleting it. I'm open to translations and podfics, but please contact me on tumblr first. Do not upload to other sites. Do not claim as your own.
> 
> If you're thinking to yourself "hey kindclaws, this sounds weirdly fluffy and out of character for you, have you been kidnapped and replaced??" there's an explanation in the end notes.

#

On a cold spring morning as they’re repairing a chicken coop in their pajamas, Bellamy asks Clarke if she’s ever thought about getting married. 

Her first thought is a wordless wave of dismay. She takes a step back like she’s been physically hit in the chest and feels the year’s first shoots of frost-rimmed grass crunch under the heel of her boot. Some of it must show on her face, because Bellamy stops hammering and takes a spare nail out from between his lips. 

“Clarke?” he asks, a hint of trepidation creeping into his voice. 

She can’t speak yet, but she forces herself to reach out, and she holds tightly to the hand he extends to meet hers halfway. When words arrive again, they come at once in an overwhelming wave. 

Clarke thinks first of her mother, the worn line of her mouth, the way she would sigh and pull up her schedules to start freeing people’s shifts up for a celebration, the closest thing to approval they’d get from her. Abby would fuss, she’d want to go digging through the salvage through Mount Weather for something nice for them to wear, she’d drop another hint that Bellamy should cut the unruly curls at the nape of his neck, she’d go pawing through the pantry herself looking for something for everyone to eat that isn’t smoked or preserved after the long, lean winter they’ve had. 

That inevitably makes Clarke think of the grounders, the invitations they’d have to send out, the ambassadors from the other clans that would take it as an intentional slight if they weren’t welcomed, the political implications of her and Bellamy making their union official, the hungry eyes that would turn a wedding into a chance to renegotiate their trading deals. 

Goodness, a whole evening of eyes on them when it feels like they’ve just barely shaken off the mountain’s cold shadow, a whole evening full of empty congratulations from strangers who have no idea how tenderly Bellamy holds her heart, and renewed teasing from their friends. And Clarke - Clarke cannot help but already mourn the empty spaces where her father would have liked to walk with her, where Wells should be standing at her side, where Aurora who she never knew would be smiling for her son. 

It sounds like a nightmare. 

“Clarke?” Bellamy asks again, and she gathers herself and takes a sharp breath in. The morning air is still chill and damp and she feels it scrape up her nose and down her throat. In the pale gold sunrise thawing the frozen dew at their feet and wreathing them in fog, Bellamy is the most beautiful, otherworldly thing she’s ever seen.

“I love you,” she forces herself to say, because she’s not sure about anything else, but she knows that much. 

“Of course,” Bellamy says, still looking at her expectantly. As the pounding of her pulse in her ears slowly dies down, Clarke is again aware of the chickens ambling about their feet with soft clucks and rustling feathers. She crouches down and reaches out to remove a little twig from one of the hens’ wings and is rewarded with a flurry of movement just out of reach of her fingertips.

“Why do you want to get married?” she asks cautiously, looking at the snowbud shoots poking up through the ground. Bellamy makes a thoughtful hum in the back of his throat as he raps his knuckle against the back of the coop he just hammered shut, and she knows he’s thinking about it.

“Well, I’ve been in love with you for years,” Bellamy says. “And this seems like the next logical step.”

Clarke lets out the smallest of laughs. “You make it sound so simple,” she mumbles. Bellamy stands up and offers her a hand. Clarke takes it and lets him pull her up on autopilot, but once they’re eye to eye again she remains frozen, her feet rooted in place as she looks out over the same frost-rimmed fields through which she once walked away from Bellamy.

“What’s not simple about it?” he asks, and she loves him more for this, the gentle rumble of his voice, his head tilted towards her and his eyes earnest, their fingers still curled together at the first knuckle. She remembers raised voices and muttered curses, she remembers distrust and contempt - and at the same time, she can’t remember why or how. It feels like that happened in another lifetime. Now, there’s just an uncomplicated love, as solid beneath her feet as earth and as sure as another sunrise. 

Can’t that be enough?

They need to go back to their cabin and dress in proper work clothes, need to get to the mess hall and have breakfast and see what else needs to be done in Arkadia before Clarke takes second shift in medical and Bellamy does a guard rotation, but Clarke keeps standing there by the chicken coops, looking through the gaps in the electric fence at the world away, and Bellamy seems in no hurry to move either. 

So she tells him, beginning with the grounder politics she’d rather not endure and how bare she’d feel under all that attention. “I just…” she says helplessly, glancing over to find him still watching her face with soft eyes. “Why are you smiling? Stop smiling.”

“Finish your sentence,” he says, elbowing her in the ribs. Clarke dances out of reach and rubs at her side before gravitating back into his space and absently rubbing his back. 

“I don’t want this to be another thing we give up for everyone,” Clarke says tiredly. They sacrificed their youth, their innocence, their very souls to save their people, and years later Clarke has days when she wakes up and can’t convince herself to get out of bed. “I don’t want the grounders to make it about alliances, I don’t want my mother to make it about herself, I don’t want to spend an entire evening worrying someone’s going to start another fucking duel. You’re the one thing they can’t carve up into little pieces.”

“Clarke - “

“I want to be selfish,” she says, and the tears that rise up in the corners of her eyes suddenly are hot and furious. Bellamy steps in front of her, sending chickens scurrying, and cups her face in his hands. Clarke closes her eyes at the first touch of the familiar calluses on her cheeks and exhales heavily as she feels his lips press against her forehead. 

“Clarke,” he says again, a little stern now, a little rough around the edges. “We don’t have to tell them.”

Her eyes fly open. 

“What?”

And oh, he’s smiling again, was he waiting to tell her this all along? Asshole. 

“We don’t have to tell any of them,” he says earnestly, his smile growing until it pulls at this cheeks, at the tiny scar in his lip. “We can get married in secret, we can tell a few friends and get drunk around the campfire together, or we tell no one. Fuck, we tell them in ten years. Whatever you want, just say the words.”

Clarke stares wide-eyed, as breathless as if she’d run miles to get to him. His thumb strokes across her cheek and her knees threaten to buckle underneath her - she laughs instead, because it’s the only thing she can think to do. 

“Bellamy, I - “ she stammers, and she cannot stop the feral smile spreading across her own face. Arkadia is quiet and still except for the chickens at their feet and the distant silhouettes of the night watch against the dawning fog, up in their towers. There is no one near enough to hear them but Clarke still steps in closer and lowers her voice like they are sharing secrets - and they are, they are, they are. Her mind reels as she turns her face and presses a kiss into Bellamy’s palm, as her hands find fistfuls of his shirt and hold on tight. “This is a crazy plan,” she hisses, and he grins, made boy-ish again by that mischievous delight. 

“You’re tempted,” he says.

Of course she is. He’s offering her everything she’s secretly coveted with none of the strings attached, none of the puppetry she hates becoming. 

“We’ll get in trouble,” she counters, even as her cheeks start to hurt with how wide she’s smiling. God, it’s so stupid, but she already knows she’s going to say yes. Bellamy must know it already, because he crowds in even closer and peppers her cheekbones with kisses. She tilts her face up and laughs again, bright and delighted and disbelieving. 

“What are they going to do? Unmarry us?” Bellamy says lowly, and that settles it, for Clarke. She is Bellamy’s, and Bellamy is hers, and this is only an extra step on a path they’ve already started on, a flourish on the signature at the end of a masterpiece. 

So much of their lives have been lived for other people. They are allowed to be a little selfish.

“Okay,” she says, and then, seeing the restless energy still lingering under Bellamy’s skin, she says it again until she sees him begin to believe it. He grins. It’s an expression she’s seen many times, especially in the last few years of tenuous peace with the grounders, but it never fails to knock the air out of her. Clarke’s beginning to think she could see it another thousand times and still not build any immunity to the way the skin around his eyes crinkles, or the deep dimples in his cheeks, or the depth of satisfaction in his dark brown irises, like a slow-moving river whose bottom she can’t see.

“Tonight?” Bellamy asks, and Clarke’s first impulse is to balk - surely they need more time? - but then she remembers there’s nothing to prepare. No news to break, no drama to smooth over, no details. She closes her mouth, and marvels at the simplicity of it. 

“Okay,” she says again, and she can’t stop from smiling. Bellamy leans in and kisses the corner of her mouth, softly, the barest of pressures. Clarke closes her eyes in wonder and tries to savour it.

“I’ll see you tonight, then,” he says. “You should go get dressed now if you want time to have breakfast before your shift.”

Clarke doesn’t immediately turn to leave, and neither does Bellamy, though the chickens are all milling about their feet now, ready to start the day. They both stand there a moment longer, grinning at each other like fools, made children again by their excitement. She wants to stay and help him pick all the eggs out of the chicken coop and bring them to the mess hall and hang out while he bothers Murphy until he gives them extra food just to make them go away, but the sun is rising, and the camp is waking, and most of the day doesn’t belong to them. She steals one last kiss and floats back to the cabin they share in a daze. 

She feels weightless all day, and it’s not like the zero-g that’s already fading from memory with every passing season on the ground. It’s like a weight taken off her. 

Her heartrate is elevated all day, like her stupid heart thinks it can make evening come faster by hurrying its beats. When she presses a stethoscope between a young boy’s shoulderblades, she has to focus to hear his breathing instead of hers. She forces herself to slow down. Her hands tremble as she signs off on inventory. She hides between the shelves of supplies and presses her hand to her mouth to muffle a laugh that bubbles up in her. What has Bellamy done to her? He’s made her ridiculous. She can’t wait to see him again. 

Her mother’s shift overlaps with the second half of hers, and Abby’s eyes narrow within the first three minutes. 

“You look happy,” she comments dryly, watching Clarke hum as she sterilizes tools between patients. 

_I have a secret_ , Clarke thinks, and it’s electrifying. She feels it on her tongue, in her restless fingers, in every other thought. She considers telling Abby, idly, already knowing it’s nothing more than a thought exercise. She thinks Abby would be happy for them, sort of, in her own way. But Clarke’s not really interested in people being happy for them, not today. She wants to be happy for herself for once, and have that be enough.

“Spring is coming,” Clarke lies, and they both look towards the window at the front of the medbay, where they can see that the sun has melted all the frost and left a beautiful clear day behind. 

Abby makes an unconvinced sound, but that’s all. She doesn’t ask again, and at the end of her shift Clarke absconds without being subjected to further questioning.

Bellamy’s not in their cabin when she comes home, and part of her wants to go looking for him immediately. 

She washes her face, instead, and redoes her braid so it’s neat and tidy. There’s a faded blue ribbon hanging from a hook on the wall - a birthday gift, from a while ago, too beloved to use every day. She ties her hair with it. She even picks out the shirt that has the least number of holes in it, and by the time she’s finished she hears Bellamy’s footsteps on the dirt path outside. She’s smiling when he comes in. 

Clarke can pinpoint the moment he notices she’s put in that ribbon, because he freezes in the doorway and tilts his head. 

“Should I dress up, too?” he asks. 

“You’re fine,” Clarke says, and she means it. He could get married to her covered in mud and that would be enough. “Let’s go.” She drags him outside and then stops in her tracks on the stoop when she realizes she doesn’t know where to go. 

“How do we do this?” she asks. 

Bellamy scratches the back of his head self-consciously with the hand she’s not holding onto. “I was thinking - Miller?” he asks. 

Clarke’s laugh is short and knowing. “Perfect,” she says.

They find him on his way to the mess hall for dinner, and wordlessly pick a side. Miller stops in his tracks and glances to both sides, looking increasingly suspicious as he registers their identical, expectant grins. 

“What’s going on?” he asks, wearing the expression one makes when they suspect they’ve just walked into a practical joke. 

“Can you marry us?” Bellamy asks, low enough that his voice won’t carry to the other Arkers passing in and out of the mess hall’s doors. Clarke watches the emotional journey Miller’s normally stoic face takes, from confusion to shock to humor to measured concern. 

“I assume there’s a reason you’re not asking the Chancellor?” Miller asks. 

“Want to keep it a secret.” 

“Uh,” he answers. They wait patiently for him to finish his sentence, but his mouth just opens and closes multiple times. Finally he gathers himself and asks. “When?”

“Right now,” Clarke says. 

“It can’t wait until after dinner?”

“The sun will be down,” she points out, and both boys’ heads swivel west. 

“Fine,” Miller says, and then hastily adds, “If you give me your dessert.” If she weren’t in such a good mood she’d argue that he agreed to do it before he thought of adding extra terms, but giving up dessert for a day - even if Murphy’s cooking - is a price she can pay without any hesitation, seeing the joy radiating from Bellamy’s face. 

Clarke leads the way out of the camp, not pausing as Bellamy tells the guards on duty at the gates that it’s fine, he’s got it covered. Away from the shelter of the maze-like collection of little cabins that has sprung up over the years, the wind is stronger and freer, but the day’s sun has warmed up the air and it’s not nearly as chill as the morning was. It really is a beautiful day to get married. The wind tugs at Clarke’s braid as she climbs up a rolling hill, threatening to undo all her careful work, but she doesn’t care. She pauses at the top and closes her eyes, drinking in the touch of sun on her cheeks as Bellamy and Miller catch up.

“Are you sure about this?” Miller asks them at the top of the rise. 

“Yes,” Bellamy says immediately, and looks to Clarke.

She has spent every year on Earth preparing to flinch. She imagines time like blood, the past in her veins, the present in transition from her lungs to the aorta. Every possible future is another capillary, smaller and further out of reach with every unknown turn. She is so sick of predicting every potential wound. She wants to tie a tourniquet and throw herself recklessly into love with Bellamy.

“I’ve never been more sure,” she promises. If there are consequences, fuck them.

“So how does this work? Do I make a speech first, or do you guys make a speech first?”

Clarke blinks several times as she thinks about this. “I don’t think we need speeches?” she says cautiously, glancing over to Bellamy to gauge his reaction. “I mean, I know you like them - “ he elbows her in the ribs, but she can see the corner of his mouth twitch up - “but I’ve already said everything I need to say.”

“Then what the hell am I here for?” Miller asks. 

“We needed a witness,” Bellamy explains, like it’s quite obvious. 

“Ugh,” Miller says. “Do whatever the hell you want. You may kiss the bride, I guess.” 

“That’s it?” Clarke asks, but Miller has already clasped a hand over his eyes, and Bellamy is pulling her in, and she’s very distracted by the warmth of his body and the gentle way he tips her head back. He kisses her, and it tastes like joy, and for once it’s allowed to be simple and uncomplicated. 

He kisses her, and that’s enough for the both of them.

**Author's Note:**

> So uh. My partner asked if I wanna get married a few weeks ago, and like, our stance for a few years has been that we wouldn't because we don't trust our families not to turn it into a horrible triggering ordeal for both of us, so obviously at first I was like, _bitch, what?_
> 
> And he was like, _'listen. we don't have to tell anyone. we can go to the courthouse and do it in secret, my coworker Paul can be our witness. we can tell them in like ten years if they keep asking'_
> 
> And I was like, _'babe, I've heard wonderful things about your coworker Paul but this is objectively weird as hell'_ and we brainstormed until we came up with a theoretical elopement plan, because that's the kind of people we are. Unfortunately, the problem with planning to elope in a few months when covid eases and some good friends move closer and can be witnesses instead of coworker Paul is that....... you have all these giddy rebellious feelings and you can't fucking tell anyone irl!!!!!
> 
> So I wrote a fic to deal. Don't look at me, I'm disgusted with myself. >:{
> 
> Title taken from an Alan Watts quote that's weirdly difficult to find in its entirety... "The rule for all terrors is to head straight into them. When you are sailing in a storm, you don’t let a wave hit your boat on the side. You go bow into the wave and ride it."
> 
>  **EDIT:** the congratulations are super sweet but I feel like you guys are jumping the gun! The thing hasn't happened yet and I might still chicken out of it 😂 I don't know what I'm doing like, at all.


End file.
